1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to apparels and more particularly to an outerwear garmet, such as a jacket, coat or the like garment article of the type having two front parts, a dorsal interconnection of the front parts and two sleeves. The invention further relates to improved methods of manufacturing outerwear articles.
2. Description of the Art
Fashioned outerwear garment articles such as jackets or coats and other garments worn on the upper or thoracodorsal region of the human body generally comprise two front parts, a dorsal interconnection of the front parts, e.g. a sequence of side and back part segments, two sleeves and, optionally, a collar part.
As is known in the fashioning art, the structure of the front parts is important for the appearance and the wear qualities of a jacket; thus, the front parts of a conventionally fashioned jacket or coat include much tailoring and a sophisticated multi-ply structure comprising interlinings or canvas parts between the outer or top cloth layer and the inner or lining layer. As both the shape and the precise location of such reinforcements contribute substantially to the quality of outerwear garments, the amount of skill and labor required for making the front parts is a main cost factor in the manufacture of jackets and the like outerwear garments.
Interlinings provided with a thermoplastic adhesive coating are conventionally used in various parts of the front parts in order to reduce stitching operations, and various adhesives and adhesive-coated reinforcing materials are known to be suitable for this purpose. This includes the so-called latent adhesives, fusion-bonding or melt-bonding polymer adhesives, as well as specially made woven or non-woven materials, one or both surfaces of which is/are capable of adhesive or fusion bonding by virtue of suitable coatings, or by using filaments or yarns including fibrous constituents capable of adhesive or fusion type bonding. However, as visibly sewn garments are required from a marketing point of view, adhesive textile bonding techniques applied hitherto in commercial outerwear manufacture have in general been used but for securing stratiform reinforcing elements at selected portions of the inner surface of the top cloth that forms the front facing of the front parts.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,275,090, issued Mar. 3, 1942, to R. H. Reiss et al discloses a top garment with two facting plies having substantially registering edge portions stitched together to form an edge seam and an intermediate ply having its longitudinal edge spaced inwardly from the edge seam. A reinforcing tape having an outer soft and flexible non-adhesive longitudinal edge portion is stitched into the seam; the inner longitudinal edge portion of the tape is provided with adhesive substantially confined to the surface of the tape portion that overlaps the intermediate ply so as to adhere only to the overlapped portion thereof. According to Reiss et al, the edge of the tape that is stitched into the seam must remain free of adhesive for maintaining the edge of the seam soft and pliable.
A similar approach is disclosed in German Published Patent Application DE-OS No. 1,460,095: an adhesive is used in the edge seam portion for forming a line of punctiform interconnections between the outer ply and a reinforcing layer, or between two top cloth layers that are joined in the front edge seam. Fusion of thermoplastics coated fabrics, such as used for flexible head coverings of motor vehicles, in the region of a stitched joint is disclosed in British patent specification No. 977,367.
On the other hand, in the production of wearing apparel of the type adapted to be laundered, e.g. shirts, it is known to produce semi-stiff collars, cuffs, plaits and the like portions that normally require starching by assembling the component pieces including an adhesive coated fabric by stitching with the uncoated surfaces arranged face to face, subsequently turning the assembly inside out to bring the two adhesive coated surfaces together and joining the components under heat and pressure for bonding or interfusing them via the adhesive. This method is disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,083,199, issued June 8, 1937, to J. D. McBurney et al, and 2,264,224, issued Nov. 25, 1941, to T. H. Swan.
The Patent to McBurney et al states that this method is applicable to suits of linen, cotton, light weight wool or other similar fabrics having lapels and collars that may be stiffened in the same manner as shirt collars, and that lapels and collars of rain coats can be cemented to prevent puckering when sewed or when the garment becomes wet.
While a certain degree of stiffening of the lapels and collars of suits may be desirable in light-weight coats and jackets for making these parts non-wrinkling or pucker-resistant, the semistiff characteristics taught by the last mentioned patents would be quite undesirable in the front parts of a jacket or coat. For reasons of wear comfort, such front parts require a relatively soft or pliable and generally non-stiff finish that is quite distinct from a starching-type semi-stiff rigidity. In fact, a stiff of semi-stiff finish implies a substantially complete loss of drapeability and I believe that previous attempts or speculative suggestions to employ adhesive techniques for topically reinforcing outerwear articles or for producing fully reversible outerwear articles have failed because of such substantially complete loss of drapeability. A quantitative evaluation of the difference between a semi-stiff finished and a drapeably structured composite will be given below.
When experimenting with woven double fabrics, i.e. a very costly type of fabric consisting of a two-ply cloth structure in which the cloth layers are interconnected by a multiplicity of invisible stitches or threads and normally used for tailor-fashioning double-faced coats or fully reversible garments that can be worn either normally or inside out, I have found that a disadvantage of such reversible garments, notably coats, is an undesirable structuring effect due to the unintentially reinforced yet still somewhat drapeable back portion; on the other hand, the structuring effect inherent in a conventional double-face woven cloth of the type just mentioned would be quite desirable for the front parts of a jacket or the like garment. When trying to utilize this structuring effect for the jacket front parts while avoiding it in the dorsal interconnection it became apparent that an extremely laborous process and great skill on the part of the tailor would be required to make the front parts from a double-face cloth and joining them with a single-plied top cloth of the side or back part component of the dorsal connection.
In fact, the threads connecting the two cloth layers of conventional two-ply fabrics must be cut in the front edge seam areas at least; then the separated portions must be folded back and sewn; further, the connection of the single layer of the dorsal connecting portion with the two-ply front parts either requires local separation of the layers of the composite or tends to yield bulky welts. So, while my experimental jacket with composite two-plied front portions was advantageous from a structural and esthetical point of view, it was apparent to me that the structure and method just described would not be feasible in commercial top garment production.
In connection with prior art it should be mentioned here that lapelled jackets made substantially without interlining and with little or no lining of the front parts are known. They are referred to as "unconstructed", "unstructured" or "bodyless" soft jackets and constitute an important segment of the sports wear market. However, the flappy appearance of such jackets is generally believed to be a necessary or unavoidable feature and tends to preclude their use for less informal purposes.
In view of the consistent teachings of the art with regard to the stiffening effect, i.e. loss of drapeability, resulting from adhesively interconnecting two cloth layers, I did not expect that a sufficiently drapeable yet structurally effective front part of a jacket could be obtained with an adhesive composite, aside from the problems of joining such composite front parts with the dorsal interconnection in a commercially feasible manner. Surprisingly, however, I have found upon further experimentation that structurally effective yet drapeable jacket front parts can be obtained by adhesive means and that such front parts provide for body and pleasing appearance while essentially retaining the high wear comfort of unconstructed jackets.
Accordingly, it is a main object of the invention to provide for a novel outerwear garment structure wherein the two front parts substantially consist of an adhesive composite of two cloth layers while the dorsal interconnection consists essentially of a single cloth or fabric.
A further object is an improved lapelled outerwear garment that requires neither lining nor interlining of the front parts while providing a generally taylored appearance and body combined with high wear comfort.
Another object is an outerwear garment structure wherein a drapeably structured adhesive composite two-ply front part of the garment is joined with a single-ply dorsal interconnection in a simple manner.
Yet a further object of the invention is an adhesive cloth composite having a sufficient degree of drapeability and a generally soft-finish handle while providing sufficient body to an outerwear garment having its front parts made of such adhesive composite.
Still another object of the invention is a commercially advantageous method of manufacturing outerwear garments having two front parts substantially consisting of a composite two-ply cloth material and a dorsal connection consisting essentially of a single-ply cloth material.